First, I bet money over 99% of the country doesn’t know who this idiot is. Second, I will make the same bet that 75% of Wyoming residents could not pick him out of a line-up with 5 other white guys. Third, does this idiot mother fucker not understand the legislative process – I guess not. Make your best deal you ignorant bastard and send it out to see how it stands up through the legislative process.

Enzi: I will only play in the sandbox if I get to have control of all the tools and sand.

What a fucking asshole. What the hell happened to someone’s humanity to make them so lacking in just basic human decency and compassion? Is it just being wealthy? I don’t think that’s the whole answer.

Holy Crap ! just now caught Jello Jay bashing co-ops w/ Mrs Greenspan:

“untested” and “unregulated”

Enzi? From Wyoming where they have about 300 people, not counting Cheney and his entourage? He wants assurances that the democratic process of legislating will be set aside so his version advances untouched? Wow, go fuck yourself Enzi. Republicans willingly sacrifice their human decency and compassion to pay lower taxes on their wealth and keep the little guy from getting too demanding. I think that’s the whole answer and this guy is just another pathetic example.

Why do we need Enzi?

Can’t we het a Bill out of the Finance Committee without him. If he’s stubborn and the Finance Committee doesn’t produce a bill, why doesn’t Harry Reid send the HELP Bill to the floor without the Finance Commitee. I know what will get him moving. Have the HELP committee take its Bill back and amend it to substitute Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” Bill for it. Then tell Finance, they’ve got three days to come up with a competing Bill. I’ll bet that gets Enzi compromising on a public option.

189,046 Wyomingites can’t be wrong!

Seriously, Nancy Pelosi got 10,000 more votes in San Francisco last year than this douchebag did in his statewide race. Where did he learn his presidenting, from George “My Way or the Highway” Bush?

You know, and I know, that even if the House bill was exactly as Enzi is demanding, he would not vote for it. No republican will vote for any health care reform bill.

Why don’t the democrats in Congress know this?

that’s a post

That is a very good question, and I do not know the answer to it. I always assume “battered wife syndrome” but I’m sure there is also a system of perverse incentives.

Since Enzi has no problem flipping off 76% of the American public, I say bring in Hannity and O’Reilly with camera crews and tell Enzi that he has an agreement.

Only then to put it right back in his face and break the agreement by calling it ‘quaint’, much like Kyoto, the Geneva Convention, and the Constitution — the kind of bipartisanship Enzi understands.

Why don’t the democrats in Congress know this?

Oh I think they know it and, hopefully, are just playing a great game of poker so that when the dust settles all Americans will know that the Republicans are pimping for the Health Care Insurance Companies who want NO changes so they can continue to Milk the People for pornographic profits and provide only the care they must! No matter what you pay for your policy you will get as little as they can provide!!
I mean the Insurance companies have people who are compensated by how much they can deny the Policy holders!

HOW do we impact Baucus, I keep asking?? His line is busy all day! He should be deluged with irate phone calls.

Good question. I thought the Thugs made it very clear what kind of game they were playing back when they were “working” on the stimulus. Apparently the concept of playing to win hasn’t been explained to the Dems in Congress.

Enzi! I am holding up one finger, can you guess which one?!

The one with the gold ring you’ll have to pawn to pay a doctor?

Oh, lord, here we go again. I accidentally clicked over to Tweety – talking to some right-winger claiming “the govt wants to kill grandma,” again.
Now he has a Dem explaining what living wills are , that no govt bureaucrat has anything to do with that, the govt isn’t/medicare doesn’t pick your doctor, you do.
And Tweety just ignored all that to say to repeat the rightie’s arguemnt and say, are you saying that won’t happen?

And the Dem says “that’s bogus!”
OMG – Terry Schiavo.

Whooee – Dem explaining how dox would have prevented Schiavo from getting into that situation.
And Tweety keeps muttering, “okay, okay” trying to cut him off.

Well, at least the progressives seem to be coming out at last, and speaking plainly. I love that the Rep said “bogus!”

Who among us does not see that scenario happening, yet again?

Now I’m really, really glad to see the the CPC is trying to organize some kind of voting block to influence the outcome this time, but seeing the same thing happen again and again, almost in slow motion, makes me cynical.

Paging Mike Stark…

Wow, can we get some of the drugs Enzi must be enjoying as he spews this nonsense, mostly to himself…the rest of the reality-based community can barely get it’s breath between the howls of laughter..

Enzi is howling at the moon if he (even in his wildest delusions) thinks anyone takes this seriously.

Office crowley is stupid as well as having done stupid things

Lawrence O’Donnell said to David Shuster last week (DAvid was sitting in for KO)… that what is happening with healthcare is directly from the playbook the Repubs used to shoot down healthcare reform in 1994.

Same committees in House and Senate did the same stalling tactics to slow things down til they could air enough lies to the (stupid… er, I mean uninformed) American public to make them scared of refirm.

O’Donnell was Chief of Staff on the Senate Finance Committee and he saw it all go down.

Do you think it will work again? That is the question.

People are really buying the “don’t support it because it is govt run and costs to much” sound bites.

I object to constant references to the public option as a push to “the left”.

No-one is suggesting that public provision of Fire Protection services are “to the left” … or municipal dumps, police services, municipal sewage processing, or drinking water treatment. All these things which we jointly fund to protect public health and safety. Only we don’t fund public health. And there’s nothing less safe than dying.

There’s nothing left wing about taking action to reduce the spread of disease, reduce the costs of sickness and death on families and on the economy, let alone the moral imperative to save lives.

In the UK, support for public health-care from left and right has been unwavering since the 1940s. The argument is never WHETHER to fund public health, but the best WAY to fund and deliver public health services.

In the 1600-1800’s Fire Fighting services were provided through private insurance in England.

You put a metal insurance plaque on your house, and if it caught fire, the Firefighters would look for the plaque and put the fire out if you were insured… and leave it burning if you were not. Trouble was, they found that if they left a house burning sometimes the fire spread to other houses! So it dawned on someone to make this a PUBLIC service. There was nothing left or right about stopping your house from being burned down by your stupid neighbor!

Turns out I’m not the only one who knows some history; a factcheck prior to posting revealed these articles on private firefighting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..47936.html
What if Firefighting services were run like healthcare:
http://open.salon.com/blog/bec…..ks_protest

Also, I’ve concluded that when Repubs and Blue Dogs/centrists use the term “bipartisan”… the two parties they are talking about are multi-billion dollar corporations and Congress.

“People are really buying the “don’t support it because it is govt run and costs to much” sound bites.”

No, only the people the MSM is showing or using on radio or in print are saying that, and they are the minority handpicked to say just that.

76% of America has already make it known what they want.

What anyone is seeing or hearing from “Americaa” is the 23% that people like Rasmussen are trying to make MORE important than they really are. And Tweety and the MSM, Cable News and such are showing the same 23% related opinion makers, opinions and pols of those opinions.

And they are doing it because the MSM IS part of the corporate feudal America that is defying 76% of the American People.

Don’t fall for the propoganda, don’t react to it, don’t acknowledge it other than to counter it . . . we have to message ourselves in other ways . . . ways of protest against the lies, and ways of messaging to spread the truth anyway we can . . . mostly with pressure on the MSM and the elected offals.

Why the left and center don’t organize a national boycott of the MSM and their sponsors is beyond me. But that would HEAVILY tilt the table for more fair representation . . .

Healthcare as a public service, how simple a concept, how pure.

Great comment, and I’m sure I’ve heard it before but . . . needs to be used more . . .

Thanks again for the reminder of the simple thing I overlook.

A public service, shuts out all the rightwing nut shreiking.

And Seminal dot firedoglake dot com *s*

You like your public firefighting plan, right?

Krugman today on Enzi

The central fact of the health care debate is that there is essentially no agreement on anything — values, philosophy, vision of how the world works — between the two sides. Progressives want universal coverage, and see an expanded government role as essential to getting there. Conservatives believe, in the face of all evidence, that free markets are the answer.

And Enzi is very conservative. According to Vote View, my site for left-right rankings, Enzi was the 8th most conservative Senator in the last Congress — almost in the same league as Inhofe or DeMint.

I am not falling for the propaganda… I know what I hear from my relatives and friends who email me…. Please do not tell me what to say or think.

I also base this statement on the fact that a dkos poster was talking to her elederly mom about the public option and her mother was against it “because it will be run by the governemtn and is too expensive.”

This is what middle America thinks… I have my frame of reference, you have yours. People are too easily swayed by the big Pharma and insurance ads.

Whoa, you mistake my comments for a personal attack, which it wasn’t.

I thought I made clear my comment was about seeing people on TV.

And my thoughts are about ALL people, who DO see this stuff on TV, and believe.

You jumped the shark there, hoss . . . .

Here’s what I responded to in my above post:

“Don’t fall for the propoganda, don’t react to it, don’t acknowledge it other than to counter it . . . we have to message ourselves in other ways . . . “

Don’t believe I “jumped the shark” ( ridiculous idiom!… and don’t call me hoss!

flea with hard on floats on his back down the river and expects draw bridge to open.

Actually, quite a few people ARE saying that things like public fire protection (and roads and the military and prisons) are evil socialism. These people are called “Republicans” and “Blue Rats” (or something like that). They are not only against Marx and Kucinich. They are against Teddy Roosevelt, Jefferson, Tom Paine, and Adam Smith–all too far left for the wingnut version of “mainstream”. King George (the Defender of the Faith, you know) was good enough for any true American.

Only those folks promote private companies paid on the taxpayers dime delivering socialized services. What if we could opt to pay military protection insurance, so if there was an invasion of Ruskies through Alaska, the level of protection you got against a commie take over of your living-room would depend on your policy fine print. Darn if only I’d gone for the extra $2,000 a month stealth bomber plan, I wouldn’t be breaking rocks in a Siberian labor camp.

Or how about Criminal Prison Protection Insurance. If you get mugged, but you don’t have prison protection insurance, your mugger stays on the outside. Hey, you have no-one to blame but yourself! You should have paid premiums. But if you have insurance – yipee he’s sent down! But now you can’t get insured again because you have a pre-existing sentence. Just feel lucky you were too dazed to fight back, cos your actions would have fallen under the contributory negligence exclusion, and he’d have been out on the street.

But wait you didn’t opt for additional parole coverage, so when he’s out, no one’s going to keep an eye on him.

He probably has been innudated with angry phone calls, so Baucus took it off the hook.

Baucus is as stupid, corrupt, and as arrogant as any of them. It’s hilarious how Enzi and Grassley made him look like a total idiot (which Baucus was doing quite well on his own with his ridiculous “bipartisan” fetish).

Enzi is a far right Senator from a right wing/far right wing/libertarian state.

This is the guy who is going to bring us health care reform? Why was Enzi given so much power? Why were 3 GOP Senators (Enzi, Grassley, and Snowe) working on a bill when the Dems have 60 votes? Why destroy the entire bill just for 3 GOP Senators, two of which never had any intention of voting for it?

WTF were the Dems thinking? Are they really this stupid? Yes, Virginia, the Dems are that stupid.

WTF were the Dems thinking? Are they really this stupid? Yes, Virginia, the Dems are that stupid.

I think it’s important to remember why the Democrats are prizing bipartisanship so highly. Their behavior is coming from their fear of doing anything substantive on their own. If health care reform was finally passed, and failed, it would be blamed on the Democrats and they’d theoretically pay in the next election.

(2) If they closed Guantanamo, and something bad happened as a result, it would/could/might be blamed on the Democrats and they’d theoretically pay in the next election.

(3) If they followed through on their many promises and pulled US troops from Iraq, and something went wrongit would/could/might be blamed on the Democrats and they’d theoretically pay in the next election.

(4) If they stopped wiretapping our phones and restored our constitutional guarantees–and something bad happened (like a terrorist attack), it would/could/might be blamed on the Democrats and they’d theoretically pay in the next election.

The GOP is acting in a totally virulent way, with absolutely no regard for what is good governmental policy. But the Democrats are acting–as a party–in an equally horrible manner. Taken together, they form two sides of a particularly ugly, corroded and dysfunctional coin.